1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a content delivery system, a content delivery method, a content delivery server and electric paper (e-paper). Specifically, the present invention relates to a method of scheduling contents to be delivered to e-paper displays (hereinafter, simply referred to as “e-paper”) placed in a vehicle body of a railway vehicle, a bus or the like which travels according to information on a time schedule. In particular, the present invention relates to a technique which makes it possible to make a delivery schedule so that contents, whose display areas are registered, can be delivered to each of e-papers mounted on a vehicle body according to information on a travel timetable.
2. Related Art
A technique for displaying advertisement information (ad-information) in a vehicle is disclosed, for example, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open Publication No. 2002-251159. In the technique described in this patent document, ad-information is transmitted from an ad-maker (a server), and then is stored in an ad-information source device. Concurrently, the ad-information is transmitted to a vehicle which is capable of traveling. In addition, while transmitting the ad-information as above, a vehicle-side system displays the ad-information to be shown to passengers, the ad-information related to an area where the vehicle is currently traveling.
Currently, as advertising media in a vehicle body, paper media are mainly used for adverting display. In a case of the paper advertisement, however, someone has to replace sheets of advertising paper with other sheets by hand after a display period of the advertising paper passes, and there has been a problem that this replacement work is so troublesome that expense is required for time and effort. In consideration of this problem, a technique has been known for displaying ad-information transmitted from an ad-maker on an electronic advertising screen or the like placed in a vehicle. This technique has been proposed as a transportation advertising system or the like for the purpose of providing a transportation advertising system capable of improving the effect of advertisements remarkably by effectively showing ad-information typified by folded leafs, for example, to business commuters, student commuters and other passengers (See Japanese Patent Application Laid-open Publication (JPA) No. 2002-251159). The proposed transportation advertising system includes: an ad-information server for transmitting ad-information via a network; an ad-information source apparatus for storing the ad-information, while transmitting the ad-information to a vehicle capable of traveling; and a vehicle-side apparatus, which is installed in the vehicle, and which is for displaying ad-information related to an area where the vehicle is currently traveling.
Recently, in addition to the foregoing paper media, LED display devices and monitor displays have been used as advertising media or information displaying media in a vehicle. Contents displayed via these media are switched according to an order (display period, transportation area and time frame) of an advertising client and the like. In a case of the paper media, someone has to do replacement work by hand according to the order, and thereby it is difficult to change the contents of advertisements flexibly and timely by following complex conditions such as periods, areas, time frames and vehicles for displaying the contents. Moreover, in the case of JPA 2002-251159, a liquid crystal display is used as a display media. However, when a liquid crystal display, an LED display device or a monitor display is used, power needs to be supplied to the display medium itself. This brings about a problem that it is necessary to consider a wiring from a power source to a display in a vehicle, and an installation location of the display.
In addition, advertisement notices (ad-notices) displayed on the respective displays mutually have the same contents, unlike the advertisement via the paper media with which every ad-notice shows a different content. Accordingly, various kinds of ad-notices cannot be provided by using advertisement notices of still images, without considering a time factor.
An e-paper is a power-saving display medium which is as thin as a sheet of paper. Use of the e-paper, instead of a liquid crystal display, does not require the consideration of a wiring for power supply and an installation location, but leads to the following problems.
The e-paper employs a PULL type information control in which the e-paper accesses a server which transmits contents, and thereby obtains information. The reason why the e-paper employs the PULL type information control is that the e-paper has a structure in which power is usually supplied only to units needed for the e-paper to display contents for the purpose of saving power. Accordingly, a communication unit or the like is usually powered off. In this state, the communication unit or the like is powered on in order to obtain the information only at a PULL timing.
As a result, even though information is transmitted from a content delivery server in a PUSH manner, the power is not always supplied to the communication unit or the like of the e-paper sufficiently enough to allow the communication unit or the like to operate. For this reason, unlike the publicly-known example, the PUSH type content delivery method cannot be applied, without modification, to a case of the e-paper. In accordance with PUSH type information control, the content delivery server is required to generate information for causing contents to be displayed on the e-paper.
In addition, another problem is that the same contents are uniformly displayed in all the transportation routes, when advertisements are displayed in vehicles. Instead, it is necessary to display advertisements suitable for traveling areas and also for traveling time frames, since such display can enhance the effect of the advertisements.